Research overview: puma-induced vigilance and the landscape of fear

A survey of how pumas create spatial gradients of perceived risk that alter where and how their ungulate prey forage. Because pumas are ambush predators favoring cover and terrain that aids stalking, deer and other prey often treat such areas as dangerous, increasing vigilance, avoiding risky microhabitats and shifting toward open ground or refugia. This overview examines field measures of the landscape of fear around pumas, including vigilance scans, giving-up densities and habitat-use shifts, and how these behavioral responses can cascade to vegetation. It contrasts the fine-grained, terrain-linked risk maps generated by stalking cats with the broader risk fields of coursing predators, and considers how fear effects may rival direct predation in shaping prey populations and plant communities.